Part 36 (2/2)
This was the condition of things when the baroness came on the morning after the party, where Felix of course had not been able to be present, to pay the patient a visit, after having been ceremoniously announced.
Felix was wrapped up in a large dressing gown, and sat s.h.i.+vering close to the stove. His big eyes, once so supercilious, and now gla.s.sy and staring, and the sickly, well-defined red spot on his lean cheeks, bore witness to the rapid progress which the disease had made during the last days. Somewhat astonished at such a visit at so unusual an hour, he half rose from his chair, and offered his aunt his thin feverish hand.
”_Bon jour, ma tante!_ must I say, so early or so late? for you have been dancing till very recently. I heard the ba.s.s viol all the way down to my room here: brm! brm! brm! until it nearly made me crazy; and if you had not cured me of cursing, my dear aunt, I could have wished the accursed creature who made all the tantrum down to the deepest place in----”
”I hope your health is not worse to-day than your cursing,” said Anna Maria, smiling. She settled down in an arm-chair before the patient, and took out some work as an evidence that she intended to pay a long visit. ”But seriously speaking, dear Felix, I have been sorry for you, and I have come to ask your pardon for the interruption.”
”Why, you are prodigiously gracious to-day, _ma tante_?”
”I thought I always was so,” replied Anna Maria; ”only there are people who will never be persuaded of it.”
”I am not one of them, dear aunt.”
”I know it, Felix; and I trust you will acknowledge that I have always done for you whatever was in my power.”
”Yes indeed; yes indeed!” murmured Felix, reflecting whether this was a favorable moment to mention to his aunt a little affair in which he was involved--now nearly three months--with a certain Mr. Wolfson, of the firm of Wolfson, Reinike & Co., and which had to be settled in a few days.
”The company--who, however, broke up punctually at a quarter past two, dear Felix--seemed to enjoy themselves very much,” continued the baroness, ”and I was heartily sorry that you could not be there. It is really high time you should report yourself well again.”
”G.o.d knows!” sighed the patient, impatiently tossing about in his arm-chair, ”I am turning a perfect hypochondriac in this hole. But tell me something about yesterday. Who was there?”
”Oh, not a great many; you know I do not like very large parties: Grieben, Nadlitz, Bamewitz, Cloten----”
”That is not a bad arrangement of names,” said Felix. ”Did not Hortense and Clotilde scratch each other's eyes out?”
”Oh, no! they are the best friends in the world; and besides, yesterday they had no reason to dispute each other the palm, as that had been decided before by the unanimous judgment of the whole company.”
”Oh, indeed! And who was this bird Ph[oe]nix?”
”Your cousin, dear Felix,” said the baroness, counting the st.i.tches in her work; ”she looked really magnificent last night. I was quite surprised myself; but she was universally admired.”
Felix listened attentively. To hear Helen praised by her mother was such a new air that he did not trust his ears.
”It looks as if the last weeks--five, six, seven--had, after all, had a very happy effect upon her. She has eight, nine, ten--lost a good deal of her haughtiness; the Countess Grieben congratulated me on her modest, truly womanly manners.”
”Pardon me, dear aunt,” said Felix, most bitterly; ”but I can hardly rejoice as much as you at this favorable change. I wish it had taken place a few weeks before. Perhaps I should then not be lying here helpless, like a horse who has been hamstrung;” and he struck the arm of his chair violently with his sound hand.
”I know you have some reason to complain of Helen,” said the baroness; ”but hatred and revenge are very unchristian feelings, especially between relatives, whom nature has ordained for mutual love.”
”Oh, certainly,” interrupted Felix. ”You are perfectly right, dear aunt! Our whole plan was built upon that supposition. What a pity, though, that Miss Helen did not care at all for this Christian love for our relatives!”
”You are bitter, Felix; and, as I said before, I admit that you may complain. But let us talk now of the matter that brought me here so early in the morning. The state of your health, dear Felix, causes me such great concern that I have been thinking of it all last night, and now I have formed a plan. You must start, and as soon as possible, on your trip to Italy.”
Felix was destined to-day to pa.s.s from one astonishment into another.
The physicians had advised this trip urgently for a fortnight; Anna Maria had opposed it as strenuously, because neither Felix, as she thought, nor she herself could at that moment afford to provide the necessary means. All of a sudden these means were forthcoming! All who knew the consistency of the baroness must have known that only a very extraordinary reason could have produced so sudden a change in her views.
What this reason was Felix did not learn in the further course of the conversation. He did not care particularly to know it. The last days and nights, full of pain, had broken his spirit; the frivolous haughtiness which he had so far boastingly exhibited had given way to mournful nervousness, in which but one thought remained uppermost--the desire to be well again at any cost. For this great purpose any means were welcome. If his aunt was willing to furnish the means for his travels, which he knew were indispensable for his recovery, well!--and all the better, the more she gave! Why she gave--why she gave now, after having declared it only a few days before utterly impossible to raise the means--what did he care for that? No more than a man who is in danger of drowning inquires from whence the saving log comes swimming down to which he clings at the very last moment.
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